A closer look
Ancient Persia birthed what might be the world's first spiritual communist movement, fueled entirely by a war of light against dark. The 5th-century mystic Mazdak radically reinterpreted Zoroastrian cosmology, preaching that because the universe was a chaotic accident resulting from the clash of pure Light and ignorant Darkness, all worldly inequalities were the deliberate work of the dark forces. To align with the Light, Mazdakites violently demanded the total redistribution of wealth, property, and even aristocrats' harems, terrifying the Sasanian empire into a massive, bloody purge.
